Cultural and political values to restore America's democracy

Money in politics

… financiers who presided over the market collapse… could have and should have seen it coming.…the financial crisis was not an accident and they were not powerless. The crisis was the result of irresponsibility and misjudgments by many people…Congress’s efforts at financial reform appear to be weakened daily by politicians who are more concerned with campaign donations than regulating the financial system. Who’s Not Sorry Now? Editorial, New York Times, April 11, 2010

“Crony cap­i­tal­ism is about the aggres­sive and proac­tive use of polit­i­cal resources, lob­by­ing, cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions, influence-peddling of one type or another to gain some­thing from the gov­ern­men­tal process that wouldn’t oth­er­wise be achiev­able in the mar­ket…Money dom­i­nates pol­i­tics. As a result we have nei­ther cap­i­tal­ism nor democ­racy. We have crony cap­i­tal­ism.” David Stock­man, for­mer bud­get direc­tor for Pres­i­dent Reagan

Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity by Paul Krugman, New York Times, posted on CommonDreams.org, May 4, 2012 — …money buys power, and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties, in the process destroying any prospect for cooperation…the Republican Party is dominated by doctrines formerly on the political fringe…the real structural problem is in our political system, which has been warped and paralyzed by the power of a small, wealthy minority. And the key to economic recovery lies in finding a way to get past that minority’s malign influence…

How Big Money Bought Our Democracy, Corrupted Both Parties, and Set Us Up for Another Financial Crisis By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company, January 22, 2012 – posted on AlterNet.org - “Crony capitalism is about the aggressive and proactive use of political resources, lobbying, campaign contributions, influence-peddling of one type or another to gain something from the governmental process that wouldn’t otherwise be achievable in the market. And as the time has progressed over the last two or three decades, I think it’s gotten much worse. Money dominates politics.” Those are the words of [David Stockman] former budget director for President Reagan…“As a result,” Stockman says, “we have neither capitalism nor democracy. We have crony capitalism.” Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times business and finance reporter Gretchen Morgenson: “You and I don’t have a lobbyist and so we are not represented in this melee. There is no balance here. There’s a drastic imbalance between the people who created the problem and the people who had to pay the problem and it has not been addressed.”

A Bitter, Losing Fight Against the Power of Money by Rupert Cornwell, Independent/UK, December 5, 2010 - …amid the turbulent craziness of American politics, there is one constant: money rules….
It is the very rich who have done best out of those cuts pushed through by George Bush in 2001. Indeed, real take-home pay has stagnated for most people over that period, while the poor have, if anything, got poorer…
Republicans, however, are adamant; the cuts (which lowered the top rate of income tax from 39 per cent to 35 per cent) must be extended for the rich and super-rich too. Do otherwise, they challenge Democrats, and you will be forever branded the party that raises taxes. In US politics, there is no deadlier accusation…the fundamental law of American politics: money rules.

ALEC: Facilitating Corporate Influence Behind Closed Doors by Mary Bottari, PR Watch, August 15, 2011 – Through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), corporations pay to bring state legislators to one place, sit them down for a sales pitch on policies that benefit the corporate bottom line, then push “model bills” for legislators to make law in their states. Corporations also vote behind closed doors alongside politicians on this wishlist legislation through ALEC task forces. Notably absent were the real people who would actually be affected by many of those bills and policies. With legislators concentrated in one city, lobbyists descend on the conference to wine-and-dine elected officials after-hours…ALEC’s power lies not only in generating corporate-sponsored “model bills” for state legislators to make law, but that it facilitates multiple levels of influence-peddling. ALEC itself has a $7 million budget and 32 staffers. In addition to this budget, ALEC technically acts as an intermediary for about a million dollars in travel “scholarships” that pay for many legislators’ trips to ALEC meetings…ALEC spokeswoman Raegan Weber notes that a piece of model legislation passed by the task force still must be approved by the 22-person Board of Directors, all of whom are legislators (and all of whom are Republicans.) Nothing that the legislative board votes on, however, gets to the board unless the corporate wing of each task force has voted in favor of it. The ALECexposed.org site launched by the Center for Media and Democracy in July demonstrates that over 800 bills and resolutions voted for by corporations have been ratified by the ALEC legislators selected for its board…